Tools
62 records
1" reel to reel videotape recorders Tools
International Video Corporation flourished from about 1967 into the late 1980s; it manufactured dozens of models of VTRs, cameras, film chains, switchers and other video equipment for the low end broadcast and high end industrial markets. The IVC 825 is a basic 1" reel to reel record/play VTR with a capstan servo; the IVC 850 is an IVC 825 with the addition of an electronic editor. The IVC 860 is very similar to the IVC 850; it is a 1" reel to reel color editor and was able to perform both assemble and insert edits.
A Building Block Approach to Color Graphics Tools
Excerpt documents the design rationale and implementation of the CAT-100/C modular video-graphics system; it describes a two-board S-100 bus implementation with a 32K dedicated frame buffer (expandable to 256K), a real-time analog-to-digital input (4-bit), D/A output and NTSC color generation, serial data paths and three external video streams, and facilities for lightpen input and photographic triggering. It details buffer formats and page/window addressing, two-port buffer timing guaranteeing clean display, text mode capacity and clock options, and palette and control-register functions for image and color handling.
Akai VT 150 Tools
Technical data sheet for the AKAI VT-150 color video tape recording system; describes a lightweight VTR and multi-purpose color camera with Automatic Editing Control, Stop Motion (with jeeped monitor), Sound Dubbing and Two-Head Helical Scan recording, complete system weight 22 lb and 26 minutes recording per 5" reel (up to 40 minutes on batteries). The camera is NTSC frequency-multiplex with a 2/3" vidicon luminance tube and Akai color dissector, 6X (12.5–75mm) F2 zoom and 525-line scanning; CCU-150 supplies NTSC video/audio outputs and 120V AC power.
Akai VT 100 and Akai VTS-110 DX Descriptions Tools
Akai Portable Video Tape Recorders The Akai VT 100 was a black and white portable video system which used ﾼ" tape. Introduced around 1969, the machine could record video using normal audio tape, although the quality was improved when using the Akai's special quarter-inch videotape. From Product Lite…
Ampex Products Chronology Tools
Chronology and product notes compiled by Howard Sanner (Draft: 29 Oct 1995; Rev. 4 Nov 1999) document Ampex professional audio and video equipment, principally drawing on the Ampex Fact Book (1970). Entries describe machines such as the Ampex 7500 (first color-capable Type A VTR with up to 4.2 MHz bandwidth), the VP-4900 (closed-circuit player for education, industry, government and medicine), and the VR-660; Jim Wheeler recounts a 1964 in-flight video project for Continental/TWA and U.S. Air Force VR-660 installations on B-52s during the Vietnam War that recorded up to six hours. The file includes production dates, model developments, awards, and discussions of specific audio recorder designs and performance.
An Introduction to Portable Video Systems Tools
Manual excerpt from the Experimental Television Center Access Program, also distributed via the Center's Workshop Program, the Cinema Department at Binghamton University, Media Study/Buffalo and other state media arts centers; it provides an introduction to principles and operation of 1/2" portable video systems (portapacks). It describes system components and controls (camera with vidicon tube and C‑mount zoom lens, microphone, deck/videotape recorder with video/audio/control heads and RF output, AC adapter, internal gel cell and external nicad batteries, television receiver), signal flow and helical-scan recording, tape format limits (1/2" reel-to-reel, max 30 minutes), editing by re-recording, video processing tools, exhibition modes and operational precautions.
Cloud-Driven Music: Description of Device and Installation Tools
Press Release for Cloud Machine 1974 Information sheet for Cloud-Driven Music c. 1976 Cloud Music was a mixed media installation developed by David Behrman, Bob Diamond and Robert Watts during 1974-1979. The installation consisted of a black and white camera which was pointed at the sky. A video ana…
Col-R-Tel Converter System Tools
The Model 100-1 Col-R-Tel was a mid-1950s mechanical color-conversion system designed to be placed in front of a ten inch black-and-white television set; a motorized spinning tricolor disc in a large plastic wheel synchronized with an assembly on the back of the TV while a chassis mounted to the rear provided electrical connections inside the set. The converters produced a reasonably good color picture only on very small screens; original cost in 1955 was $150 and the device was featured in Popular Science, October 1955.
Computer Animation Systems GRASS and ZGRASS Tools
Dan Sandin arrived at the University of Illinois in 1971 and developed the Sandin Image Processor; Tom DeFanti joined shortly after and developed the Graphics Symbiosis System (GRASS) during his PhD. They formed the Circle Graphics Habitat at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, where GRASS ran on hardware including a Vector General CRT, a PDP-11 and the Sandin Image Processor; the system was purchased by the UICC Chemistry Department and received funding from organizations including NSF and the Carnegie Corporation. In 1978 the Z Box project produced ZGRASS, a Z-80 Bally-based 3D system with NTSC output that DeFanti attempted to commercialize through Real Time Design, Inc.; a ZGRASS device was presented at Video History: Making Connections, 1998.
Computer Systems Approach to Video Art Tools
A 1975 proposal to the New York State Council on the Arts and a 1977 report describe a computer-based video synthesis system for synthesizing, processing and controlling video images for artists. The documents list proposed and conventional components including spatial and intensity digitizer, function generator, digital memory, A/D and D/A converters, sync generator with genlock, time-base corrector, chroma keyer, colorizers, keyers and special-effects generators; they define interactive-compositional and automatic-production modes. The system specifies a 1,024-word 16-bit buffer, a DEC LSI-32 microprocessor with Teletype I/O and floppy drives, a 9.7552434 MHz clock phase-locked to a 3.579545 MHz subcarrier, and an X–Y module providing 512 pixels and 18 bits of timing.
Cromemco Z-2 in the ETC Studio Tools
In 1979, the Experimental Television Center used a Cromemco Z-2 with a CAT 100 Frame Buffer in the system provided to media artists. The processing system computer was the Z-2, an 8 bit system with an S-100 bus, and dual floppy drives. A CAT digital frame buffer was interfaced to the computer; at th…
Dave Jones Colorizer in Experimental Television Center Studio System Manual Tools
David Jones designed and built the Jones Six Channel Colorizer for the Residency Program at the Experimental Television Center; the device was developed in 1974 and 1975 and funded by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts. The multi-functional image-processing unit accepts up to six black-and-white video signals and assigns independent hue and intensity per channel; controls include gain, pedestal, polarity, saturation, clip level, keying with any channel selectable as clip source, hard/soft edge control and additive or diode mixing, and most parameters are voltage-controllable including high-frequency control voltages.
Description of the early Image Processor, excerpted from the Macro Proto Proposal Tools
The image processor was constructed under a grant for innovation in undergraduate program development at U.I.C.C. (University of Illinois at Chicago Circle) and is partially completed but functioning; its explicit instruction addresses perceptual learning of two-dimensional kinetic images and its implicit content embodies linear analogue generalized machines and video technology. It accepts moving images from television cameras, film trains or video tape recorders and routes them through modules that modify and combine images; it has operated about four months and was introduced to about seven people, with formal curriculum introduction planned for this fall.
Descriptions of Systems Tools
Siegel Video Systems presented the Electronic Video Synthesizer (E.V.S.) as the first all-electronic video synthesizer, intended for live performance with keyboard, foot pedals and D.C.-coupled signals; information available through Howard Wise Gallery, February 10, 1971. Siegel-Ferraro Electronics distributed the Processing Chrominence Synthesizer (PCS) in 1975 and Siegel Electronics distributed the Processing Chrominance Synthesiser Model 100 in Brooklyn in 1976; the PCS holds U.S. patent no. 3,647,942 and functions as a colour synthesizer and processing amplifier performing sync reconstruction, white peak limiting, keyed clamp D.C. restoration, luminance and detail controls, and chroma/phase adjustments. The PCS was reported in use by colleges and individuals in the U.S. and Canada; cited literature includes Pioneers of Electronic Art (1992) and a 1970 Jud Yalkut interview with Eric Siegel.
Descriptions of the Image Processor Tools
Notes Sandin Image Processor Sherry Miller Hocking Sandin Image Processor Set Up Analog IP Modules excerpts of description by Jeffrey Schier Modules Sandin Image Processor The Sandin IP is an analog video system designed by Dan Sandin, of the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, to help art stu…
Design and Operation of the Spatial and Intensity Digitizer Tools
The Spatial and Intensity Digitizer (SAID) is an early digital-video prototype developed in 1976 to provide a low-cost video-speed analog-to-digital solution; it used a 6-bit A/D and companion 6-bit D/A to render 64 grey levels. A horizontally locked oscillator slowed the clock to allow variable horizontal sampling that creates adjustable vertical strips and a posterize bit-selection effect. The prototype was available for experimentation at the Experimental Television Center; documented in the 1980 studio manual by Sherry Miller Hocking and Richard Brewster; exhibited at Video History: Making Connections in 1998.
Direct Video: Electronic Artform for Color Television Tools
In 1970 Stephen Beck received a grant to develop the Direct Video Synthesizer for the National Center for Experiments in Television at KQED-TV in San Francisco. He designed and built the synthesizer with support from the National Endowment for the Arts; the prototype comprises circuit and control modules that operate with the scanned video raster, accept sync and drive pulses, and output parallel RGBY for NTSC color. Beck outlines an aesthetic model of form, motion, texture and color and a technical mapping using pulse-width modulation, waveshaping and RGB distribution.
In Consecration of New Space Tools
Dan Sandin describes the Image Processor (I-P) as a patch programmable general purpose analog computer for real-time video image processing which he designed and built; it accepts television camera, film chain and videotape inputs, routes images through modular processors to monitors or tape and can accept external biological and environmental sensor signals. Jim Weisman describes the Paik/Abe Video Synthesizer as a colorizing device accepting 14 inputs and mixing up to seven for monitor display or videotape. Philip Lee Morton states Video E/S is authorized under the Illinois Retailers' Occupation Tax Act to sell tangible personal property at retail, that the registration covers the Use Tax Act and related service tax acts, cites #188-411-5, and defines E/S as a compound of two words beginning with E and S.
Instruments by Harald Bode and the Bode Sound Co Tools
Harald Bode designed the Bode Vocoder Model No. 7702, the Warbo Formant Organ (1937, Heinrich-Herst Institut, with C. Warnke), the Melodium (shown 1938, with Oskar Vierling) and the Melochord (built 1947–1949). Model 7702 is a sixteen-channel vocoder (50–5080 Hz plus 5080–15000 Hz) with 6 ms analyzer response, voice-activated carrier/noise switching and a built-in rack-mountable power supply switchable 115/230 V. The Warbo Formant was a partially polyphonic four-voice instrument; the Melodium was a monophonic touch-sensitive keyboard with vibrato pedal; the Melochord was a monophonic 12-note-scale keyboard with octave-range switches, foot pedal and per-key envelope shaping, used at Bonn University and radio studios in Köln by Stockhausen.
Jones Colorizer - History of the Design Tools
Dave Jones designed the Jones Colorizer at the Experimental Television Center in 1974 and 1975 with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts; the original four‑channel device provided independent RGB controls per channel, used voltage control so video did not pass through knobs, employed diode (layered) mixing, and generated colors internally from three solid R, G and B images rather than using a color encoder. A NYSCA‑funded six‑channel second generation was developed in the early 1980s with expanded keying and input options; copies were kit‑built and sold by Jones’ Designlab, the six‑channel unit remains in daily use at the ETC studio, and Jones has discussed a proposed third‑generation model.
Jones Frame Buffer in Experimental Television Center Studio System Manual Tools
The Jones Buffer is a black-and-white image buffer that operates standalone or under Z-80 computer control; front-panel controls allow real-time digitization, single-page grab/store and a keyer-like selective storage between live and stored signals. Memory totals 128,000 bytes (256×256 resolution yields 16 pages) and the buffer outputs a digital signal converted to analog; video I/O is routed via a matrix with two inputs (video and clip) and one output. In stand-alone mode it supports software such as STROBE64 and TESPNEW and can be routed with the CAT buffer; in computer mode it requires buffer-specific programs (e.g., NEWGRAB) and occupies the Z80 and D+7A, preventing CAT use.
Jones Keyer in Experimental Television Center Studio System Manual Tools
Richard Brewster, c.1976, documents Jones Keyers as hard-edge luminance keyers in the Sequencer case, describing I and II with two VCA channels, a clip channel, and voltage-controllable parameters accepting ±5 V signals. The manual includes step-by-step operating instructions. Keyer III is a hand-wired prototype with VC jacks for Ch. A and C; Keyers IV and V are three-input VC keyers that use Ch. C as the clip input, employ a BAL control in place of separate pedestals, and have manual-only On/Off and Normal/Reverse controls.
Jones Sequencer in Experimental Television Center Studio System Manual Tools
Technical documentation for the Jones 8 Input Sequencer, an eight-input, one-output voltage-controllable switcher that operates in sequence, binary (three-bit) and manual modes; it can process video signals or ±5 V control/audio/shape signals via front-panel mini-jacks. The entry details front-panel controls and indicators (including pushbuttons, pedestals and switches), sequence/count and sync inputs, sync modes for below and above 60 Hz (including a 60-sync option), interaction with external oscillators and the Analog Control and Image Processing systems, and use of sample-and-hold modules for vertical interval switching.
Not Still Art Festival 2000: The Paik/Abe Synthesizer Tools
Nam June Paik and Shuya Abe developed the Paik/Abe Synthesizer at WGBH-TV (Boston) as the first machine designed to distort existing video; Paik was an artist-in-residence and part of The Medium Is The Medium project supported by Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Artists-In-Television Project. The instrument routed seven black-and-white surveillance cameras through non-linear amplifiers into a colorizer/scan modulator and RGB-to-NTSC encoder; it debuted on WGBH Ch. 44 on August 1, 1970 in a four-hour broadcast Video Commune set to Beatles recordings. Paik later built additional synthesizers for the Experimental Television Workshop and WNET; the original is exhibited at the Kunsthalle Bremen in a frame of vintage televisions showing dates of production.
Operating Instructions AV-8650 Color Videocorder Tools
Operating instructions for the Sony AV-8650 color Videocorder; a rotary two-head helical-scan FM videotape recorder that captures EIA monochrome and NTSC color signals and provides full editing capability including assemble and insert modes. Features include tape interchangeability with AV-Series machines, TAPE SELECT for regular or high-density tape, rotary erase head and vertical-interval switcher, converted sub-carrier direct recording and dropout compensation, capstan servo control, tracking and skew adjustment, slow and still playback. Specifications list AC 120V 60 Hz power (95W), 7.5 ips tape speed, over 60 minutes recording with Sony V-32/V-72, dimensions, weight, I/O connectors, controls and supplied accessories.